GENEVA, November 8 (Itar-Tass) - Ukraine has urged Russia to issue an official report on the results of Russia’s inspections at its Roshen confectionery maker at a meeting of the committee on technical barriers in trade of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
According to the committee’s official release, Ukraine said Russia’s ban on some of Ukrainian-made confectioneries was unexpected. Moreover, it was non-transparent and there were no proof that these products were hazardous for consumers. So, Ukraine said this ban was a discrimination of Ukrainian products.
A representative from the Russian delegation noted that no notification of the World Trade Organization was needed, since the ban had been applicable to only one manufacturer. Russia, the representative said, would revise the ban on imports of Roshen products as soon as such products met Russian requirements.
In late July 2013, Russia’s consumer rights protection authority (Rospotrebnadzor) imposed a ban on imports of Roshen products over claims to their quality. Russian experts arrived in Ukraine on October 22-25 to inspect Roshen companies. After these inspections, Rospotrebnadzor said that Roshen products were made “on the basis of normative documents that have been cancelled in Russia and that do not meet present-day requirements in terms of microbiological safety and quality.” Kiev challenged the results of the inspections and said Rospotrebnadzor’s claims were ungrounded.